Chuck Schuldiner Project

Saturday, November 15, 2014

The Flight of Sleipnir - V.

The Flight of Sleipnir have long been held up as one of this generations greatest Coloradoan doom metal bands. Their latest release, the dreamy and powerful V. is no exception to that, providing nearly an hours worth of crushing riffs and beautiful acoustic sections that will capture the imagination and get you digging into the incredible power that these guys have. V. takes you on a veritable musical journey and by the time you reach the stunning a cappella coda of Beacon In Black Horizon you realize that you have come full circle, returning to the glory that is found in the opening bars of the albums first track, Headwinds.

I get the sense that V. is a clear step forward for The Flight of Sleipnir. Whereas before they may have had a distinct sound something didn't feel wholly right, now they seem to be fully embracing it and have put out what is easily their best record to date. This album feels incredibly natural, like falling into a dream and realizing that in this dream world anything is possible. V. proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that The Flight of Sleipnir belong in the doom metal pantheon. These tracks are epic in scale and beautifully constructed. Simply put, the amount of work that must have gone into making this album as good as it is must have been phenomenal.

This album marks a winding path into the soul. With its oftentimes eerie acoustics and incredibly heavy guitar parts there is a lot to latch on too, showing that ultimately there is some hope in this demented little world of ours. V. is captivating, once you start listening it's impossible to stop. There are seemingly infinite layers here and I get the sense I will be listening to this record for years to come. The Flight of Sleipnir have really done it, and it looks like that they just might have written the best doom metal album of the year.